UP: 19-year-old allegedly gang-raped by 23 people over six days, six arrested
Varanasi (UP), Apr 7 (PTI): A 19-year-old woman was allegedly gang-raped by 23 people over six days, with the accused drugging her and taking her to several hotels as they passed her on for abuse, police said here on Monday. Six of the accused have been arrested.
Additional Commissioner of Police, Cantonment, Vidush Saxena said the woman had gone out with some youths on March 29. Her family filed a missing report on April 4 when she did not return home.
When the police rescued her, she did not mention about the rape, he said.
However, the survivor's family on April 6 lodged a complaint alleging that she had been gang-raped.
The woman told the police that between March 29 and April 4, the accused allegedly took her to many hotels and hookah bars and gang-raped her, the officer said.
The police said 11 unnamed persons have also been booked. Out of 12 named accused, six were arrested on Sunday, and efforts are on to nab the rest of the accused.
The woman's mother in her complaint said that her daughter had gone to her friend's house on March 29. "On the way back home, she met a boy named Raj Vishwakarma, who took her to his cafe in Lanka, where Raj and his other friend did 'bad acts' with her.
"The next day my daughter met a boy named Sameer, who was on a bike with one of his friends. Sameer took her on the bike to a highway and did a 'bad act' with her on the bike itself and left the girl at Nadesar," she alleged.
"The next day, on March 31, a boy named Ayush along with his five other friends named Sohail, Danish, Anmol, Sajid and Zahir took her to Continental Cafe in Sigra and made her drink intoxicants and raped her one by one. On April 1, a boy named Sajid along with his friend took her to a hotel, where two-three other people were present.
"There, a man raped her and them threw her out. As she was leaving the place, she met a boy named Imran on the way, who also raped her in a hotel after making her drink intoxicants. Later, when the girl screamed, he left her outside the hotel," the mother alleged in her complaint to the police.
On April 2, a boy named Raj Khan took her to the roof of his house in Hukulganj where he tried to rape her after drugging her. When the woman screamed, the youths took her to Assi Ghat in an intoxicated state and left her there, her mother alleged.
On April 3, a person identified as Danish took her to his friend's room and there Sohail, Shoaib and some other boy drugged her daughter and raped her. Later, they left her near Chowkghat. The next day on April 4, her daughter came home and told them about her ordeal, the complainant said.
The named accused have been identified as Raj Vishwakarma, Sameer, Ayush, Sohail, Danish, Anmol, Sajid, Zahir, Imran, Jaib, Aman and Raj Khan.
A case has been registered under sections 70(1) (gang rape), 74 (assault or use of criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty), 123 (causing hurt by means of poison, etc., with intent to commit an offence), 126(2) (wrongful restraint), 127(2) (wrongful confinement) and 351(2) (criminal intimidation) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), the police said.
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Rupee strengthens past 90/USD level in early trade
Mumbai (PTI): The rupee appreciated 24 paise to 89.96 against the US dollar in early trade on Friday, supported by corporate dollar inflows and easing crude oil prices.
Forex traders said the gain in the USD/INR pair follows the rupee’s string of record lows in recent weeks on likely intervention from the Reserve Bank of India.
Moreover, crude oil prices hovering around USD 59 per barrel level supported market sentiment.
ALSO READ:Rupee trades in narrow range against US dollar in early trade
At the interbank foreign exchange market, the rupee opened at 90.19 against the US dollar, then gained some ground and touched 89.96 against the US dollar, registering a gain of 24 paise over its previous close.
In initial trade it also touched 90.22 against the American currency. On Thursday, the rupee appreciated 18 paise against the US dollar to close at 90.20 against the greenback.
The rupee sank to a fresh record low, breaching the 91-a-dollar mark for the first time on Tuesday.
"Since the speculators are out of the market the buying of US dollar syndrome has come down a bit though intra-day we could see spikes," said Anil Kumar Bhansali Head of Treasury and Executive Director Finrex Treasury Advisors LLP.
The US CPI came lower than expected but was also due to non-collection of sufficient data and therefore, the next month’s CPI becomes more important, Bhansali said, adding that "Rupee remains in a range of 90-90.50".
Meanwhile, the dollar index, which gauges the greenback's strength against a basket of six currencies, was trading 0.04 per cent higher at 98.46.
Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, was trading lower by 0.27 per cent at USD 59.66 per barrel in futures trade.
On the domestic equity market front, the 30-share benchmark index Sensex climbed 375.98 points to 84,857.79, while the Nifty was up 110.60 points to 25,934.15.
Foreign Institutional Investors purchased equities worth Rs 595.78 crore on Thursday, according to exchange data.
Meanwhile, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM) member Sanjeev Sanyal on Thursday said he is not concerned about the rupee at all, arguing that even China and Japan witnessed exchange rate weaknesses during their high growth phases.
Speaking at 'Times Network's India Economic Conclave 2025', Sanyal said since the 90s, the rupee has mostly been allowed to find its own level, but the RBI uses its reserves to intervene in either direction to stop excessive volatility.
"I am not concerned about the rupee at all... Let me say that the rupee and its current weakness should not be necessarily conflated with some economic worry, because historically, if you go over time, you will see that economies that are in their high growth phase very often go through a phase of exchange rate weakness," he said.
